Week 14
Vegan Triathlete
http://vegantriathlete.com
http://vegantriathlete.com/2013/04/week-14/
2013, Food, getting back into it, Half Ironman, Health, life in the way, MyFitnessPal, nutrition, racing goals, strength training, winter training
Crystal Clarke
14 weeks. 14 weeks until my A-race of 2013. Holy S**t. When I counted the weeks this morning I had a little jump of panic. Why? Well, let me just tell you why.
The past few months I have been more active than I have been since the marathons last spring. That really isn’t saying a lot since I did almost zero activity from June to December. The reasons for that were numerous: burn-out (2 years of straight training will do that), a knee injury, a lot of various family issues from my brother being in an accident to my best friend getting extremely ill to my boyfriend’s dad getting very sick and passing away, a stressful tenant situation that just kept going on and on and on, unhappiness within my job/career, and a new serious relationship. The family and burnout stuff were the biggest reasons.
Now I have really turned things around. Within all of the stressful events of the last year I have let my food habits go bad bad bad. I needed comfort and just didn’t care what I put in my body. My thought process: “After all, it’s not like I was using it as fuel for my training.” I really did use food to comfort me in the intense times of stress. The result was gaining 15 pounds. To a lot of people that’s really not a big deal, but to a woman who is 5’0″ tall, 15 pounds is a lot. To someone of average height, it’s probably similar to gaining 25 pounds.
I’ve never weighed this much in my entire life. Not eating properly is probably just one aspect, I’m also getting older and my body probably isn’t metabolizing it as fast as it used to. It doesn’t feel healthy. In November I decided that I’d better start taking care of myself. It’s been a long process of getting out of the habit of eating bad food, drinking alcohol (socially, it’s not a problem situation), and not exercising. I’ve have times of going “back” but overall I’m moving forward.
One ways I’ve been doing this is that I have re-committed to MyFitnessPal and have been fairly consistent at logging my food and exercise. My soon-to-be sister-in-law has been a big help and super inspirational. Her reasoning is to fit into her wedding dress; my reasoning is to fit back into my jeans! Plus, you know, the looming half Ironman thing in just 14 weeks.
I’ve been nursing a knee ever since the double-marathon May, 2012. Last week I went for a walk-run and it started “acting up” near the end. My plan is to do lots of fast walking, in addition to strength training and stretching to get this sorted out. I have to find a new massage therapist because of my moving to a small town because that really seems to help. I wish I could keep going to my rock-star RMT, but I don’t think I’ll be going back to Saskatoon enough to deal with it without a supplement of some sort closer to where I’m living. It’s also a work in progress.
Where does that leave me now? I have been trying to answer this question for the past week or so. My food habits have gotten significantly better, especially since moving. I moved in with my boyfriend, who lives in small-town Saskatchewan, because I got an amazing career-boosting job that I’m very excited about. It’s very quiet and I can see stars every clear night. Scott and I made a general deal where I cook during the week and he handles the weekends. Since I’m also cooking for one pre-teen and one teenager, I am trying to find a balance between food that they like, and healthy, vegan food. It’s a work in progress for sure and I’ll be posting the successes and failures of that. So far I know that they don’t like vegetables unless they are raw dipped in ranch dressing. Yikes! At least it’s a start and I’m going to work on some dishes that are similar to their normal food, but veganize it so that they can hardly tell.
As for exercise, I’m walking quite a bit, I’ve started up my yoga practice once again, and until the snow melts I’m going to be working out with my girl Jillian Michaels. Once the snow melts, I’m so so excited to go riding my bike on the road in the hills that are in this area. This has really been the winter that will never end. We have 6 feet of snow still on the ground and have hardly had any melting days. We got snow this past weekend and then the wind blew it into drifts. I’m excited to run on the road instead of ice and ride my bike on the highway! Summer will come eventually.
So that’s my life to this point. I have 14 weeks to do base training, build endurance, and then peak. I’d better make a plan!
14 weeks. 14 weeks until my A-race of 2013. Holy S**t. When I counted the weeks this morning I had a little jump of panic. Why? Well, let me just tell you why.
The past few months I have been more active than I have been since the marathons last spring. That really isn’t saying a lot since I did almost zero activity from June to December. The reasons for that were numerous: burn-out (2 years of straight training will do that), a knee injury, a lot of various family issues from my brother being in an accident to my best friend getting extremely ill to my boyfriend’s dad getting very sick and passing away, a stressful tenant situation that just kept going on and on and on, unhappiness within my job/career, and a new serious relationship. The family and burnout stuff were the biggest reasons.
Now I have really turned things around. Within all of the stressful events of the last year I have let my food habits go bad bad bad. I needed comfort and just didn’t care what I put in my body. My thought process: “After all, it’s not like I was using it as fuel for my training.” I really did use food to comfort me in the intense times of stress. The result was gaining 15 pounds. To a lot of people that’s really not a big deal, but to a woman who is 5’0″ tall, 15 pounds is a lot. To someone of average height, it’s probably similar to gaining 25 pounds.
I’ve never weighed this much in my entire life. Not eating properly is probably just one aspect, I’m also getting older and my body probably isn’t metabolizing it as fast as it used to. It doesn’t feel healthy. In November I decided that I’d better start taking care of myself. It’s been a long process of getting out of the habit of eating bad food, drinking alcohol (socially, it’s not a problem situation), and not exercising. I’ve have times of going “back” but overall I’m moving forward.
One ways I’ve been doing this is that I have re-committed to MyFitnessPal and have been fairly consistent at logging my food and exercise. My soon-to-be sister-in-law has been a big help and super inspirational. Her reasoning is to fit into her wedding dress; my reasoning is to fit back into my jeans! Plus, you know, the looming half Ironman thing in just 14 weeks.
I’ve been nursing a knee ever since the double-marathon May, 2012. Last week I went for a walk-run and it started “acting up” near the end. My plan is to do lots of fast walking, in addition to strength training and stretching to get this sorted out. I have to find a new massage therapist because of my moving to a small town because that really seems to help. I wish I could keep going to my rock-star RMT, but I don’t think I’ll be going back to Saskatoon enough to deal with it without a supplement of some sort closer to where I’m living. It’s also a work in progress.
Where does that leave me now? I have been trying to answer this question for the past week or so. My food habits have gotten significantly better, especially since moving. I moved in with my boyfriend, who lives in small-town Saskatchewan, because I got an amazing career-boosting job that I’m very excited about. It’s very quiet and I can see stars every clear night. Scott and I made a general deal where I cook during the week and he handles the weekends. Since I’m also cooking for one pre-teen and one teenager, I am trying to find a balance between food that they like, and healthy, vegan food. It’s a work in progress for sure and I’ll be posting the successes and failures of that. So far I know that they don’t like vegetables unless they are raw dipped in ranch dressing. Yikes! At least it’s a start and I’m going to work on some dishes that are similar to their normal food, but veganize it so that they can hardly tell.
As for exercise, I’m walking quite a bit, I’ve started up my yoga practice once again, and until the snow melts I’m going to be working out with my girl Jillian Michaels. Once the snow melts, I’m so so excited to go riding my bike on the road in the hills that are in this area. This has really been the winter that will never end. We have 6 feet of snow still on the ground and have hardly had any melting days. We got snow this past weekend and then the wind blew it into drifts. I’m excited to run on the road instead of ice and ride my bike on the highway! Summer will come eventually.
So that’s my life to this point. I have 14 weeks to do base training, build endurance, and then peak. I’d better make a plan!